


She Who Holds Her Tongue

by angellwings



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Family, Friendship, Post-Season/Series 01, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 08:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5041678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angellwings/pseuds/angellwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cassandra wakes up the morning after a movie marathon to find something has gone very wrong. Loosely based on The Little Mermaid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Who Holds Her Tongue

 

Someone was shaking her shoulder, she thought. Maybe. She was vaguely aware of what felt like shaking while she hesitantly signed the glowing golden contract in front of her. She should never let the boys talk her into a late night Disney movie marathon ever again. Apparently, they gave her strange dreams. They’d been watching _The Little Mermaid_ earlier and it seemed to have invaded her subconscious in the form of a dream. She was standing in for Ariel in this dream.

This was the part where the Sea Witch would take Ariel’s voice and since she was now Ariel that would be _her_ voice Ursula was stealing. Wait, no, that wasn’t Ursula. Why did the Sea Witch look like Morgan le Fey? That was mildly disturbing. The foggy hand from the animated film that had creeped her out earlier that evening reached down her throat. She actually felt that. She was gasping and choking until the hand pulled itself out of her throat with a small glowing object held in it’s fingers. That _hurt_. She couldn’t remember feeling pain in any of her dreams before. Was that normal? It didn’t seem right.

Morgan drew the voice into a small vial on a chain around her neck as Ursula had done with the shell in the movie and Cassandra shuddered. This felt far too real. She would give anything to wake up right now.

Finally, the shaking grew more persistent and she felt the dream slipping away as something in the front of her head began to tingle like hundreds of needles gently pressing into her scalp.

She gasped and sat up sharply. She winced and then brought a hand to her neck. She’d fallen asleep with her head on the table. She remembered parts of her dream and frantically glanced down at her legs. No fin, still legs. That was good. She glanced around the room and the events of the night before came back to her. She was in The Annex. Ezekiel had figured out how to hook his laptop up to Jenkins’s monitor and the boys had spent the night introducing her to different Disney movies. She’d fallen asleep during the credits of The Little Mermaid. She took deep breaths to calm herself down and then heard Ezekiel chuckle next to her.

“Nightmare?” he asked.

She nodded and yawned sleepily and tried to blink the sleep out of her eyes. She was about to tell him about her dream when Jacob walked in from the kitchen and set a coffee mug down in front of her. She gave him a grateful smile and then took a slow comforting sip. How did he know?

“Hey,” Ezekiel said in an offended tone. “You didn’t bring me coffee.”

“ _You_ didn’t seem to be having a bad dream. _She_ did,” Jake said with a roll of his eyes before Jake gave her a hint of a smile. “Mornin’,” he said as he sat down next to her.

She swallowed another sip of coffee and then tried to return the greeting. The key word, however, was _tried_. Her lips formed the words but no sound came from them. That was odd. But maybe she was just hoarse. That sometimes happened to people in the morning didn’t it? She then attempted to clear her throat, but no sound came from that action either. That definitely wasn’t right. Images of Morgan putting a little gold orb in a vial flashed through her mind and her hands immediately flew to her throat.

No. No way. It was a dream. That’s all it was. It had to be a dream. Why would she be stupid enough to make any kind of deal with Morgan? She felt panic building up in her chest.

_Oh god, oh god._

“Cassie?” Jacob asked worriedly. “What’s wrong?”

She took a deep calming breath and decided to try one last time. She was fine. It was all in her head. Just a side effect of the dream. Yet again, though, when she tried to tell Ezekiel and Jacob what was wrong the words never made it off of her lips. She formed them but no sound left her throat. She slapped both hands over her mouth and felt tears spring to her eyes.

Morgan le Fey stole her voice. She actually stole her voice! And the contract! She’d signed a contract hadn’t she? What had she agreed to? She tried to remember but she couldn’t seem to piece it all together. Bits and pieces flew around in her head but she couldn’t remember everything. She didn’t know what the deal was other than Morgan needed her voice as collateral. No, wait she did remember one more thing: Her punishment if she failed to fulfill her end of the bargain. She felt as though her heart stopped when she remembered what the punishment was for failing. Why in the world would she agree to this? She was so much smarter than this and yet she somehow fell for Morgan’s offer.

 _Oh god, this was bad. Very bad_. She felt panic bubbling up in her chest and braced herself for an impending episode. They typically happened when she stressed herself out. But this time she wouldn’t be able to voice her memory like Jacob had taught her and that always helped. How would she deal with it if she couldn’t do that? She tried to prepare herself for it. She did not need this on top of everything else. But, even as Jacob and Ezekiel closed in on either side of her protectively, nothing happened. No spell came. Nothing. There were no numbers flitting through her vision, no complex equations causing a symphony in her ears, no smells of breakfast. She glanced over at Jake out of the corner of her eye. In fact, she should have started smelling oranges ages ago. She hadn’t noticed she wasn’t smelling them until now.

Jacob’s hand gently curled under her forearm and he leaned in a little closer. He probably thought she was having a spell.

“Cassandra? What’s going on? Talk to us,” he said softly.

She stood abruptly and broke his hold on her arm to pace nervously. She wanted to talk. She _really_ wanted to talk. She did. But she couldn’t and they kept watching her expectantly. She ran around the table and desperately began searching the books and papers for her notebook and pencil that she always kept with her.

“You’re starting to freak me out,” Ezekiel told her. “Have you finally lost it?”

She stopped searching and glared at him angrily.

He winced and then held up his hands in surrender. “I get it. Not helping. I’ll shut up.”

Stone rolled his eyes at Ezekiel and stepped up beside of her. “Can you not talk? Is that what’s happening?”

She nodded eagerly in response, touched a hand to her throat and then shook her head.

“Your voice is gone?” He asked with a furrowed brow. “How the hell did that happen?”

She looked frustrated and lost for a moment as she tried to think of how to communicate and then gave up. She began frantically searching the table again. She needed her notebook.

“What are you looking for?” Stone asked.

She huffed. Once again annoyed and panicked that she couldn’t speak. She did a hurried writing motion in the air and hoped he understood.

He snapped his fingers, smirked at her, and then turned toward the card catalogue cabinets behind him. He pulled the notebook and pencil off the top of one of the cabinets and then handed it to her. “I moved it last night when Ezekiel brought in the pizza,” he explained. “I didn’t want him getting his greasy paws on it.”

She beamed at him as she took it from him and then hugged him tightly in relief. When she pulled back she noticed him blushing ever so slightly. Well, that was interesting. She filed that away and quickly got back to the task at hand.

The boys watched her anxiously as she wrote down everything she could remember in her notebook. Except the punishment. She left that out. She didn’t want to think about it or dwell on it. It would never come to be. She knew it. She also wrote down everything that she’d experienced since waking up or everything she hadn’t experienced since waking up, in the case of her synesthesia. When she was finished Ezekiel grabbed her notebook before she could hand it to Jacob.

Ezekiel frowned at the page. “You could write prescriptions with this hand writing. How do you read this?”

Jake took a deep breath to maintain his patience and then glared at the younger man. He ripped the notebook out of his hands. “Gimme that, will ya?”

Cassandra paced again and watched him nervously as he read. She was mostly embarrassed and ashamed of her current situation. The fact that she’d let Morgan somehow talk her into a ridiculous deal hurt her own pride. There were still lots of pieces missing that she wished she could remember too.

Finally, he finished the first part of what she’d written and gave her a concerned look. “You traded your voice to get rid of the…the brain grape?” Jacob asked her with a furrowed brow.

“What? That sounds like a _terrible_ deal,” Ezekiel said in alarm. “Who swindled you into that?”

Jacob glanced back down at the page and read a little further. “Morgan le—Morgan le Fey? You made a deal with Morgan le Fey? Cassandra, what the hell were you—“

She glared angrily at him and Jacob promptly shut his mouth. She pointed to the book and put a hand on her hip with an annoyed expression.

“Right, sorry,” he said an irritated huff. “I’ll keep reading.” He relaxed slightly as he read and then closed the notebook once he was finished. Ezekiel gave him an impatient glance.

“Well?” The Thief asked.

“She signed a contact that traded her voice as collateral to Morgan le Fey. She has to do _something_ , she doesn’t know what, in a certain amount of time, she doesn’t know how much. If she does she gets her voice back and gets to live tumor free,” Jacob told him. “Problem is she doesn’t remember what she has to do or how long she has to do it.”

“What happens if she doesn’t succeed?” Ezekiel asked before he turned to Cassandra and gave her a scolding look. “Do you remember _that_ part?”

“Hey,” Jacob said as he hit Ezekiel’s arm lightly. “She thought it was a dream,” he said as he held up the notebook to indicate she’d included that part in her story. “She didn’t know it was real. Do you remember all of your dreams?”

“When they involve Morgan le Fey, I do,” Ezekiel responded with a smirk.

Cassandra’s nose scrunched up in disgust and she made a gagging motion. Jake smirked at her and nodded in agreement.

“Will you two stop that?” Ezekiel asked. “It’s freaking me out.”

Cassandra gave Ezekiel a confused glance and Jacob furrowed his brow at him before he spoke.

“What the hell are you talking about, Jones?”

“The nonverbal communicating, and translating,” Ezekiel elaborated. “The sympatico stuff is ridiculous with the two of you. It’s _weird_.”

Cassandra and Jacob both blushed and exchanged awkward glances.

“So, did she say what happens if she fails in that notebook?” Ezekiel asked with thinly veiled annoyance.

“No,” Jacob admitted with a sigh. “She didn’t.”

They both gave her expectant looks.

She bit her bottom lip and took the notebook back from Jacob. She scribbled something across two pages and held it up for them to see.

 _Doesn’t matter, we won’t fail_.

“What makes you so sure of that?” Ezekiel asked worriedly.

She gave them both a small smile, turned the page, and quickly wrote something else and showed it to them.

_Because I have you two to help me._

Ezekiel’s annoyed expression turned into a small smile and he chucked at her. “All this time I thought you were a Ravenclaw. Turns out you’re a Hufflepuff.”

She beamed at him and then quickly doodled a cute little snake on the page to show him with a wink.

“Really? Harry Potter references? Now?” Jacob asked with a huff.

Cassandra smirked at him, playfully, and then did her best silent impression of a roaring lion. Ezekiel laughed and nodded in agreement.

“Right on,” Ezekiel told her as he chuckled. “He’s a Gryffindor all the way. It explains so much.”

“Cute,” Jacob told her dryly with a small grin. “Can we get to work now?”

Cassandra stuck her tongue out at him teasingly, but nodded and then pointed to Jenkins’s lab. They walked through the door and Jenkins immediately sighed.

“Do the three of you _ever_ go home?” He asked. Then upon seeing the guilty looks on all of their faces he stopped his tinkering and gave them an exasperated glance. “What have you all done now?”

Ezekiel pointed to Cassandra and spoke with a grin. “Cassandra made a deal with Morgan le Fey in a dream and woke up mute!”

She gave him a withering glance and he chuckled at her in response.

“What?” Ezekiel asked her. “For once it’s not my fault. Let me have this.”

Jake and Ezekiel helped her explain the full situation to Jenkins. They filled in the details she’d given them when her non-verbal responses couldn’t.

When it was over Jenkins shook his head and stared at her thoughtfully. She expected words of disappointment or a sarcastic comment but instead he patted a stool by his worktable and held out a hand to her. “Come here, please, Ms. Cillian.”

Jake and Ezekiel gave her sympathetic looks as she hesitantly joined Jenkins and dutifully sat on the stool he’d motioned to.

“First, we must find out the details of this deal,” Jenkins told them. “And do not be too upset with yourself. Morgan has been pulling this same scam for centuries. Our subconscious wants, needs, and dreams are the easiest to manipulate. You are your most vulnerable and suggestible in a dream state. Once we find out what was on that contract then we will have the details we need to find a solution.”

“If the contract existed in her dream then how are we going to get a copy of it?” Jacob asked in confusion.

“As usual, you are thinking too one dimensionally, Mr. Stone,” Jenkins said as he opened a nearby closet and began to dig through it. “With a little science and a little magic,” he called to them as they heard things falling and clanging inside the closet. Jenkins let out a soft curse before he emerged from the closet with a large cumbersome piece of headgear in his hands. “Anything can happen.”

Cassandra gave the device a nervous look as Jenkins began to explain.

“This device will allow us to see into Ms. Cillian’s dream,” Jenkins told them. Cassandra immediately looked alarmed and Jenkins placed a hand on her shoulder in response. “Not the whole dream, mind you. Just a specific portion that you will need to focus on. A snapshot, if you will.”

“Is it…safe?” Jacob asked warily. “That helmet looks a little intense.”

“It’s perfectly safe,” Jenkins assured him. “I have tested it multiple times.”

“On a human?” Ezekiel asked him suspiciously.

“I have tested it multiple times,” Jenkins repeated as he placed the thing on Cassandra’s head. She gulped nervously as she velcroed the strap on her chin. Everyone noticed that Jenkins had avoided the question.

“Better you than me, kid,” Ezekiel told her with a teasing grin.

She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him playfully.

“Now, Ms. Cillian, once I switch it on you will need to focus on the contract. This is very important. It will attempt to search your whole mind and it will be very easy to get distracted or lost but you will need to focus. Keep the moment you signed that contract sharp in your mind,” Jenkins warned her. He plugged one end of a cord into the headgear she was wearing and then the other into an odd looking glass device that he’d placed on top of an overhead projector. The projector was pointed a white screen. “This will display the snapshot that you will focus on for us to view. Once we have an image we can transfer it over to transparent paper and then we will be able to examine the contract more closely. Understood?”

She nodded but looked uncertain. If they saw the contract they would know the punishment and she feared their reaction once they knew. Well, maybe not all of their reactions. Just one person’s reaction, really. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She could do this. She closed her eyes as Jenkins flipped the switch and folded her hands in her lap.

Images began to flick across the screen: memories, dreams, fantasies. It was a little bit of everything but they were all moving to fast to tell what they were. Jacob focused on the screen because for a moment he thought he’d seen himself, but that couldn’t be right. Or if he had, then it must have been a memory of some kind. Then Ezekiel bumped his shoulder and nodded toward Cassandra with a worried expression. Jacob shifted his attention to where she sat on the stool and gulped nervously. This did not look good. Cassandra’s hands were gripping each other so tight now that they were completely white. She was biting down on her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood and her brow was furrowed with a pained expression on her face. He quickly slipped passed Ezekiel and Jenkins to stand in front of her.

He exchanged a worried look with Jenkins. This wasn’t working. She needed to focus.

Cassandra gasped suddenly and nearly fell off the stool. Jacob instinctively grabbed her arms to steady her with one hand on each arm. She blindly reached out and grasped his arms tightly in return.

“Cassandra, you gotta focus,” he said urgently. “Picture the contract. _Just_ the contract. Ignore everything and everyone else. With all the visions you deal with on a daily basis this is a piece of a cake,” he told her. Her face relaxed slightly but she still had a death grip on his arms. He dared to lean even closer to whisper in her ear. “You can do anything you set your mind to, Cassie. I _know_ it. You should too.”

Her hands relaxed and finally the image came into focus. Jenkins fiddled with the device on the projector and then a document began printing nearby.

“Got it,” Jenkins said triumphantly. “Mr. Stone, you may switch off the device.”

He eagerly reached behind Cassandra and flipped the switch back to off on the headgear and gently unvelcroed the chin strap. He peeled the helmet off of her and handed it to Ezekiel.

“Cassie?” Jacob asked worriedly. His hands returned to steadying her as she seemed to be unconscious. “C’mon, Cassandra, wake up.”

Her eyes blinked open slowly and she winced in pain.

“You okay?” Stone asked her as he watched her closely.

She nodded and released his arms to rub her temples.

Jenkins replaced the glass device with the transparent document and adjusted the projector to focus on the words.

“Well,” he said with a sigh. “We have _most_ of the contract. Cassandra’s main objective is cut off at the top of the image.”

Cassandra stood carefully from the stool and she stepped toward the screen. Jacob stuck close by just in case she needed him. She seemed a little shaky on her feet. Ezekiel walked up to the screen to try and read it as well.

As he read the time frame of the deal caught his eye. “A _day_?” Ezekiel asked Cassandra. “You have 24 hours to do the thing we don’t know. That’s not terrifying at all. Especially since you won’t tell us what the consequence is for failing.”

Jacob then turned to Jenkins with an idea. “Does it say what her punishment is if she fails?” He was trying to read it himself but Jenkins appeared to be reading it faster than either he or Jones.

Cassandra smacked his shoulder and shook her head at him pleadingly.

“Cassandra, we need to know,” Jake answered. ‘If this goes bad we need to know how to stop whatever the punishment is. Contracts don’t have to be iron clad.”

“No, they don’t,” Jenkins said with a sigh. “But this one appears to be.”

“Shouldn’t we be more worried about finding out what she’s supposed to do?” Ezekiel asked. “How the hell do we make sure she succeeds when we don’t know the reason for the deal to begin with?”

Jacob tossed a silencing glare at Ezekiel. “We need to know what her consequence is _because_ we don’t know the objective. If we can’t get that completed then we need to know what we need to protect her from.”

“I’m getting to it,” Jenkins said with an annoyed sigh.

Cassandra glared at all three of them, threw both hands in the air in exasperation, and then marched out of the room. Ezekiel watched her go curiously, while the other two men worked on reading the contract. He followed her and found her sitting at the main table in the Annex doodling in her notebook. She looked lost, sad, and…alone. It was quite a change from the Cassandra who’d been so positive they would win just moments ago. He sat down next to her and nudged her leg with his. She looked over at him with a questioning expression.

“Why don’t you want us to know?” He asked her.

She sighed and wrote out: _You’ll misunderstand_.

“Misunderstand what?” He asked with a furrowed brow.

_My reasons._

He was about to ask her what she meant by that when Stone’s stomping footsteps could suddenly be heard entering the room. They only stopped when he was standing across from them with his arms crossed and his expression stern.

“So, it’s that easy, huh?” Stone asked Cassandra as he ignored Ezekiel’s presence. “You’re willing to give all of this up _forever_ for a chance at not having your tumor or your synesthesia? We mean so little to you that you’re willing to just _walk away_ , is that it?”

Ezekiel’s eyes widened and his mouth formed a perfect circle. Now, he understood. Of course, Ezekiel wasn’t bothered by it. He’d been forced to pick up and leave so many times it hardly bothered him. But he had gotten attached to Cassandra and he would like to keep her around.

“Mate,” Ezekiel said to Jake a sigh. “I don’t think that’s why—“

“Did I _ask_ you, Jones? No, I asked _her_ ,” Jacob interrupted him as he kept his glare focused on Cassandra.

“And we’re back to ‘ _her’_ again, are we?” Ezekiel asked him with a roll of his eyes. “I’m going to let the two of you talk—wait, _no_ — _work_ this out, My apologies, Cassandra,” Ezekiel said as he tossed her a small smirk. “I’m going to see if Jenkins needs my help with anything.”

Cassandra glared back at Stone as Ezekiel left the room. She then pointed at Jacob and then up to the mezzanine. She grabbed her notebook and her pencil and marched up the stairs.

How dare he be mad at her! How dare he think that she would ever choose to leave this life or these people or… _him_. He was so blind and so stubborn. Thoughts of what had to happen to make him that way broke her heart. She stopped at a desk in the upper mezzanine and angrily scribbled out three words and then shoved the notebook in his face.

 _You willfully_ _misunderstand._

“How does a person willfully misunderstand anything? The situation looks pretty clear to me,” he said angrily.

_You only see what you want to see._

“Why would I _want_ to see it this way?” He asked through a tense jaw. It was clear he thought that accusation was ridiculous.

_It justifies you keeping us out of reach._

“I’m not talking about any of the others,” he told her with a huff. “I’m talking about _you_.”

_And I’m talking about us._

He looked from the notebook to her as she gestured between the wildly. Her mouth was set in a firm line and her eyes were hard. She was angry. _She_ was angry at _him_. She was the one who made this horrible selfish deal and yet she was mad at _him!_

“So what am I _willfully_ misunderstanding?” He asked in mild annoyance.

_That I chose my consequence. I would never choose that. Never. I would rather live and die with this tumor than leave here._

“So then why even agree to this ridiculous deal?” He asked her.

She started to write furiously but as she thought and wrote her hand slowed and her breathing became slow and labored until she had to set the pencil down. Was she about to cry? She walked a few feet away from the table and turned her back to him. His chest tightened with some sort of pain he couldn’t identify as he watched her walk away. He picked the notebook up off of the table to read what she’d written.

_I don’t know. I don’t have a clue why I would even subconsciously think about giving all of this up. I. Don’t. Know. I hate myself for it. I love The Library. I have a strange little makeshift family now! I would never want to let go of that! I don’t want to go back to what I was before! I don’t want to go back to being that lonely hopeless girl ever again! Not now that I know about magic and wonder and_

She’d stopped there. She hadn’t finished and had walked away. He gulped back his own emotions as he read it again. He’d forgotten. He’d forgotten that if they failed Cassandra would have to go on living. She didn’t talk about her family for reasons unknown and she had _no one_ else. _They_ were all she had. If this went bad _she_ would suffer the worst of it. Yes, selfishly, he would miss her. He liked her. He liked being around her. He liked being reminded that her kind of brilliance existed in the world and he did not want to lose that _or her_. At first he’d been afraid that the affection he felt for her was completely one sided. That she didn’t care for him at all. But now he could see those fears were ridiculous and they did not have a place in this. The stakes were much bigger than his feelings. This sprung from his own issues with trust and paranoia and his determination to be proved right. This was _not_ the time to take that out on _her_.

He closed the notebook and walked toward her slowly. He stepped in front of her and held out the notebook to her.

“Now that you know about magic and wonder and… _what_?” He asked curiously in a soft and apologetic tone.

She looked up at him with tearful eyes, sniffled, and then gently poked his chest. She mouthed the word “You” as she did so to ensure he understood her meaning. Her blue eyes met his and for the life of him he couldn’t find a shred of dishonesty in them. She meant what she was saying to him. She really meant _him_.

“Me?” He asked in surprise.

She nodded hesitantly and then tried to turn away from him again. He reached out a hand and gently grabbed her arm to stop her.

“Don’t—wait,” he said he moved his hand from her arm to her wrist and then put his hand in hers. “You’re right. I—I do try to keep you an arm’s length away. I try not to think about what we both know is there. But I do notice it. I feel it. And the more I tell myself you can’t be trusted the less likely it is that you get too close. The less likely it is that I…lose you completely. I know, it doesn’t make much sense. None of my decisions seem to make much sense. But that’s it, though, all I do is _tell myself_ you can’t be trusted. I lie to myself. Like I always have.”

His hands tightened on hers and she held her breath in anticipation. She had a feeling she knew what was coming. She could hardly believe what he was about to say.

“Because I do, Cassandra. I tr—“

He was interrupted by the sound of the Back Door blasting open with a strong wind that they felt just as strongly in the Mezzanine as they would have on the main floor.

“What the hell?” Jake asked as he kept a hold on Cassandra’s hand and led her down the stairs.

They found a red head in a green dress standing in the middle of the open door. All of Jake seemed to tense and Cassandra felt herself want to both rage and cower all at once.

“Ah, there you are, darlings,” Morgan said a sinister twinkle in her eyes and a deceptive smile on her face. “Now, now,” Morgan said as she pointed to Jake and Cassandra’s joined hands. “We can’t have that, can we?” She waved a finger at them and they each went flying into opposite ends of the Annex. Cassandra collided against the card catalogue drawers and Jacob was slammed into the stacks on the bottom floor.

Morgan chuckled and then cornered Cassandra against the drawers. “My, my. You worked faster than I anticipated. You’re as charming as they say, aren’t you, Little Red? Even without that shrill voice of yours. You almost have him. No worries. I’ll fix that.”

Over Morgan’s shoulder Cassandra noticed Jacob pick up a sword. Cassandra bit her bottom lip nervously and knew this wouldn’t end well. Morgan sighed tiredly and held out a hand behind her back. The sword was ripped from Jacob’s hands and then pointed at his chest with the tip of the blade pressing into the fabric of his shirt.

“If the Guardian couldn’t touch me, Jacob Stone, what makes you think you can?” Morgan asked with a giggle as she shook her head and turned to face him. “You’re adorable.”

“What in the name of all that is holy is going on in here? I am _working_ ,” Jenkins exclaimed in exasperation as he stormed into the room. He froze as he spotted Morgan and huffed. “Of course. Why wouldn’t you be here?”

“Good to see you again too, Galeas,” Morgan said with a smirk.  “I’d rather hoped these little Librarians would improve in time. It seems I’m destined to be disappointed.”

“Give Cassandra her voice back,” Jacob sneered.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, _dear_ , your little girlfriend and I have a deal. She signed a contract,” Morgan said with a triumphant smile as she lightly pressed the blade further into his chest. Cassandra winced at the pained look that crossed Jacob’s face before Morgan continued to speak. “When she loses she’ll leave you behind forever and I get all of her magic. Of course, that’s my preferred outcome. But should she win it won’t be a total loss. Without her little curse, her magic will be suppressed for the most part and I'll have one less rival in the world. If you think about it, it’s a win-win for me really.”

Ezekiel came sprinting in suddenly and froze with a tiny grin at the sight of Morgan. “Well, hello.”

“So you’re doing all of this to get whatever little bit of magic Cassandra has?” Jacob asked with a furrowed brow. “That’s a lot of work for that isn’t?”

Morgan chuckled and shook her head. “You have no idea who she is. Neither did I at first. But now…now I know. This little one has more magic in her little finger than the generations of Librarians who came before her. She just hasn’t unlocked it yet. I plan to take it before she can.”

Cassandra looked confused and lost. She glanced over to Jenkins in hopes of getting an answer but found him looking thoughtful and bewildered with a copy of the contract clutched in one hand.

“Now, darling,” Morgan said as she turned back toward Cassandra. “Give up now and maybe I won’t dump you in some alternate timeline or mirror world after I’ve drained you of your magic. I mean, you’re never going to succeed anyway. Just save yourself the trouble and surrender.”

Cassandra glared at her defiantly and shook her head.

“Alright then,” Morgan said with a smirk. “I guess the Cowboy has to die.”

She waved a hand and lifted Jacob several feet up into the air above the main work table. She dropped him and he landed on the table with a grunt of pain and a loud crash. If Cassandra could have screamed, she would have. It was horrifying. A worst nightmare come to life. She started to lift him again and Cassandra was about to use the notebook she had in her hand to write a concession note when Ezekiel suddenly spoke up.

“Not so fast, Attractive Crazy Witch—“

“Sorceress,” she corrected him with a glare.

Ezekiel gave her a bored look and then shrugged. “Tomato, tomahto.”

Morgan gritted her teeth and huffed. “Do you _want me_ to drop him?”

“The backwards country person? Do what you want with him. I don’t care. I just thought you’d want to know that you’re _contract_ is a load of crap,” Ezekiel said with a smirk. “And by that I mean null and void. Completely useless.”

“That contact is iron clad,” Morgan told him with a sneer.

“It would’ve been. Had you not stepped foot in our Annex,” Ezekiel said as he sat down at the main worktable. “But showing up here, qualifies as interference, and what did we just read about interference in that contract, _Mr_. Jenkins?”

Jenkins grinned slightly at the younger man before he turned to Morgan. “Your contract has a Non-Interference clause. Were you aware of that? I believe you designed it to keep your victims from seeking help but it also applies to you. Inadvertently it protects your victims _from you_. Violating this clause results in the entire contract being declared void.”

“What? No, that’s impossible,” Morgan declared angrily.

“Shall I highlight the section for you?” Jenkins asked with a smirk. “It’s right here,” he said as he pointed to a certain section of the transparent paper he was holding.

Cassandra’s eyes stuck to Jacob as he floated mid air. She bit her bottom lip nervously. Please do not let her drop him again.

“So, put the hillbilly down and leave,” Ezekiel said as he propped his feet up on the table.

“And hand that vial around your neck to Ms. Cillian, if you please. You can no longer keep her voice from her,” Jenkins said triumphantly.

Morgan decided to try one more time, but fully conscious Cassandra would have none of it.

“If I give you this voice back the tumor comes with it,” Morgan told her. “The headaches, the nosebleeds, the siezures. The idea of leaving these people forever.”

Cassandra glared at her, shook her head, and held out her hand expectantly. If there was ever an expression or stance that said ‘no deal’ that was it. Morgan huffed and placed the vial in her palm.

“Fine, give up. Don’t come to me for help when that tumor in your head rips you away from them,” Morgan told her vindictively as she flipped her hair over her shoulder and walked toward the Back Door. “Keep your magic. It’s wasted on you anyway.”

She waved her hand as she left and Stone slowly levitated toward the floor. His feet hit the floor and Cassandra was in front of him just seconds later. She put a hand under his chin and turned his face to see if he had and scrapes or bruises. Jacob smiled warmly at her and placed a hand over hers. He took the vial out of her hand.

“We’ll worry about me in a second, Cassie. You need this,” Jacob said just before he pulled the cork out of the top of the vial. A gold light left the vile and Cassandra breathed deeply. It entered through her mouth and for a moment there was a golden aura surrounding her. It disappeared just as quickly and left Cassandra blinking at Jacob in a daze.

“Cassandra?” Ezekiel asked worriedly. “You okay, kid?”

Cassandra placed a hand on her throat and swallowed thickly. She took another deep breath and then tried to speak.

“Yes,” she said after a long agonizing moment. She beamed at the three men in front of her and repeated herself excitedly, “Yes!”

She jumped up excitedly and wrapped her arms around Stone’s neck. Who returned the hug but winced as his side still hurt from the landing on the table. Cassandra jumped back and placed her hands on his shoulders.

“Oh god, are you hurt? Where? Are you okay? Did you break anything?” She asked worriedly. “Did I make it worse?” She asked. Suddenly her gaze drifted away and her hands flipped through images only she could see. Her lips moved just barely and Jacob watched her carefully to see if she’d need him. But a minute later she was back. She came back on her own.

She blushed and looked down at the floor sheepishly. “Well, I guess we know the tumor and the synesthesia is back.”

“Yeah,” Ezekiel said with a nod. “But you’re still here. Still _home_. So, that’s a plus.”

She smiled at him and nodded before she caught Jacob’s eyes with a meaningful glance. “Totally worth it.” Jacob smiled warmly at her and nodded in understanding. Cassandra then gave her attention to Jenkins and Ezekiel. “Thank you so much. You’re both brilliant! I thought you said there weren’t any loopholes?”

Jenkins gave Ezekiel an amused look and motioned to Cassandra. “Do you want to tell her or should I?”

Ezekiel grinned and then shook his head. “Nah, I already had my hero moment. You take this one.” Ezekiel then turned and left the Annex with a wave. “See you all tomorrow.”

“What?” Jacob asked with a furrowed brow. “What happened?”

“There weren’t any loopholes. He was bluffing,” Jenkins said with a chuckle. “Miraculously, it worked. Librarian and thief, a surprisingly successful combination.”

Jenkins tossed the contract in a near by trash bin and then left Jacob and Cassandra to retreat back to the quiet of his lab as if facing Morgan le Fay was just an average day.

“Ezekiel bluffed me out of a contract with an insanely powerful sorceress,” Cassandra said to herself thoughtfully. “Wow, is this really my life?”

Jake chuckled and then winced again.

“Okay, really,” Cassandra asked him as she led him to a chair and had him sit down. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, you know, I’m great,” he said sarcastically. “I was just tossed around by the witch who brought down Camelot. No big deal.”

“Do we need to take you to the emergency room?” Cassandra asked seriously.

“No, I’ll be fine. Nothing’s broken, I don’t think. I’m just…sore,” Jacob said with a sigh. “Nothin’ any worse than that bar fight I got into with Santa,” he said with a grin. “That was a good day.”

Cassandra shook her head at him but smiled softly as she propped herself on the armrest of his chair. “I still can’t believe you _wanted_ to be in a Christmas Eve bar brawl. I mean, is there some exhilaration from fighting that I just don’t—“

His lips on hers cut her sentence off completely. So completely that she forgot what she was going to say. He’d cupped her cheek, stretched upward to reach her lips and then pulled her down to meet him. She’d never even had a moment to realize what he was doing before they’d already begun. It had been instinct to kiss him back. She’d never had to think bout it once. One kiss turned to two and then another and another. And these kisses weren’t chaste or quick by any means. They were deep and intrusive and intimate and perfect. She smiled against his lips as she started to taste and smell oranges.

Some things about her synesthesia were extremely nice to have back. Jacob being connected to oranges was one of them. She already knew he smelled like them to her, but now she knew something else….

He tasted like them too.

He pulled back from her and rested his forehead against hers. He kept his eyes closed and a gentle hand on her cheek. “I trust you. I trust you, Cassandra.” She gasped and beamed at him as he opened his eyes to meet hers. “I was trying to tell you that earlier but—“

“Morgan showed up,” she said with a nod. “I hoped that was what you were trying to say.”

“Dinner?” Jacob asked.

Cassandra bit her bottom lip with a shy smile. “Dinner like a date?”

He nodded and grinned at her. “Does that sound good to you?”

She took a deep breath and then nodded eagerly. “Sounds _perfect._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed this! I was watching Little Mermaid with my niece when I got this idea. I couldn't shake it. Notice I never said what Cassie was supposed to do. I wonder if any of you can guess? It may not be what you think! Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it!  
> Angellwings


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